Classical T Tauri-like Outflow Activity in the Brown Dwarf Mass Regime

Over the last number of years spectroscopic studies have strongly supported the assertion that protostellar accretion and outflow activity persists to the lowest masses. In this paper we present the results of our latest investigation of brown dwarf (BD) outflow activity and report on the discovery of two new outflows. Here ISO-Oph 32 is shown to drive a blue-shifted outflow with a radial velocity of 10-20 km/s and spectro-astrometric analysis constrains the position angle of this outflow to 240 +/- 7 degrees. The BD candidate ISO-Cha1 217 is found to have a bipolar outflow bright in several key forbidden lines (radial velocity = -20 km/s, +40 km/s) and with a PA of 190-210 degrees. A striking feature of the ISO-Cha1 217 outflow is the strong asymmetry between the red and blue-shifted lobes. This asymmetry is revealed in the relative brightness of the two lobes (red-shifted lobe is brighter), the factor of two difference in radial velocity (the red-shifted lobe is faster) and the difference in the electron density (again higher in the red lobe). Such asymmetries are common in jets from low mass protostars and the observation of a marked asymmetry at such a low mass supports the idea that BD outflow activity is scaled down from low mass protostellar activity. In addition to presenting these new results, a comprehensive comparison is made between BD outflow activity and jets launched by CTTSs. In particular, the application of current methods for investigating the excitation conditions and mass loss rates in CTT jets to BD spectra is explored.Comment: Accepted by Astrophysical Journa

The Deep Diffuse Extragalactic Radio Sky at 1.75 GHz

We present a study of diffuse extragalactic radio emission at $1.75\,$GHz from part of the ELAIS-S1 field using the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The resulting mosaic is $2.46\,$deg$^2$, with a roughly constant noise region of $0.61\,$deg$^2$ used for analysis. The image has a beam size of $150 \times60\,$arcsec and instrumental $\langle\sigma_{\rm n}\rangle= (52\pm5)\, \mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$. Using point-source models from the ATLAS survey, we subtract the discrete emission in this field for $S \ge 150\, \mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$. Comparison of the source-subtracted probability distribution, or \pd, with the predicted distribution from unsubtracted discrete emission and noise, yields an excess of $(76 \pm 23) \, \mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$. Taking this as an upper limit on any extended emission we constrain several models of extended source counts, assuming $\Omega_{\rm source} \le 2\,$arcmin. The best-fitting models yield temperatures of the radio background from extended emission of $T_{\rm b}=(10\pm7) \,$mK, giving an upper limit on the total temperature at $1.75\,$GHz of $(73\pm10)\,$mK. Further modelling shows that our data are inconsistent with the reported excess temperature of ARCADE2 to a source-count limit of $1\, \mu$Jy. Our new data close a loop-hole in the previous constraints, because of the possibility of extended emission being resolved out at higher resolution. Additionally, we look at a model of cluster halo emission and two WIMP dark matter annihilation source-count models, and discuss general constraints on any predicted counts from such sources. Finally, we report the derived integral count at $1.4\,$GHz using the deepest discrete count plus our new extended-emission limits, providing numbers that can be used for planning future ultra-deep surveys.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables, Accepted by MNRA

Charged polytropic compact stars

In this work, we analyze the effect of charge in compact stars considering the limit of the maximum amount of charge they can hold. We find that the global balance of the forces allows a huge charge (~ 10^{20} Coulomb) to be present in a neutron star producing a very high electric field (~ 10^{21} V/m). We have studied the particular case of a polytropic equation of state and assumed that the charge distribution is proportional to the mass density. The charged stars have large mass and radius as we should expect due to the effect of the repulsive Coulomb force with the M/R ratio increasing with charge. In the limit of the maximum charge the mass goes up to ~ 10 M_sun which is much higher than the maximum mass allowed for a neutral compact star. However, the local effect of the forces experienced by a single charged particle, makes it to discharge quickly. This creates a global force imbalance and the system collapses to a charged black hole

Near Infrared Spectroscopy of Young Brown Dwarfs in Upper Scorpius

Spectroscopic follow-up is a pre-requisite for studies of the formation and early evolution of brown dwarfs. Here we present IRTF/SpeX near-infrared spectroscopy of 30 candidate members of the young Upper Scorpius association, selected from our previous survey work. All 24 high confidence members are confirmed as young very low mass objects with spectral types from M5 to L1, 15-20 of them are likely brown dwarfs. This high yield confirms that brown dwarfs in Upper Scorpius can be identified from photometry and proper motions alone, with negligible contamination from field objects (<4%). Out of the 6 candidates with lower confidence, 5 might still be young very low mass members of Upper Scorpius, according to our spectroscopy. We demonstrate that some very low mass class II objects exhibit radically different near infrared (0.6 - 2.5micron) spectra from class III objects, with strong excess emission increasing towards longer wavelengths and partially filled in features at wavelengths shorter than 1.25micron. These characteristics can obscure the contribution of the photosphere within such spectra. Therefore, we caution that near infrared derived spectral types for objects with discs may be unreliable. Furthermore, we show that the same characteristics can be seen to some extent in all class II and even a significant fraction of class III objects (~40%), indicating that some of them are still surrounded by traces of dust and gas. Based on our spectra, we select a sample of objects with spectral types of M5 to L1, whose near-infrared emission represents the photosphere only. We recommend the use of these objects as spectroscopic templates for young brown dwarfs in the future.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, Accepted in MNRA

The SONYC survey: Towards a complete census of brown dwarfs in star forming regions

SONYC, short for "Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters", is a survey program to provide a census of the substellar population in nearby star forming regions. We have conducted deep optical and near-infrared photometry in five young regions (NGC1333, rho Ophiuchi, Chamaeleon-I, Upper Sco, and Lupus-3), combined with proper motions, and followed by extensive spectroscopic campaigns with Subaru and VLT, in which we have obtained more than 700 spectra of candidate low-mass objects. We have identified and characterized more than 60 new substellar objects, among them a handful of objects with masses close to, or below the Deuterium burning limit. Through SONYC and surveys by other groups, the substellar IMF is now well characterized down to ~ 5 - 10 MJup, and we find that the ratio of the number of stars with respect to brown dwarfs lies between 2 and 6. A comprehensive survey of NGC 1333 reveals that, down to ~5MJup, free-floating objects with planetary masses are 20-50 times less numerous than stars, i.e. their total contribution to the mass budget of the clusters can be neglected.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of the conference 'Brown dwarfs come of age', May 20-24 2013, Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italian

Electrically charged compact stars

We review here the classical argument used to justify the electrical neutrality of stars and show that if the pressure and density of the matter and gravitational field inside the star are large, then a charge and a strong electric field can be present. For a neutron star with high pressure (~ 10^{33} to 10^{35} dynes /cm^2) and strong gravitational field (~ 10^{14} cm/s^2), these conditions are satisfied. The hydrostatic equation which arises from general relativity, is modified considerably to meet the requirements of the inclusion of the charge. In order to see any appreciable effect on the phenomenology of the neutron stars, the charge and the electrical fields have to be huge (~ 10^{21} Volts/cm). These stars are not however stable from the viewpoint that each charged particle is unbound to the uncharged particles, and thus the system collapses one step further to a charged black holeComment: Proceedings of 10th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation and Relativistic Field Theories (MG X MMIII), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 20-26 Jul 200